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Web Design Garage
This is not a primer, tutorial, or concept-bound book. It is meant to provide practical guidance and solutions to the most common Web design issues dealt with by Web designers. Author Marc Campbell, offers a set of 86 topics about Web design problems and solutions. The format for nearly all of the 86 topics is to highlight a design challenge, then offer solutions using pictures, examples, and code snippets. Although a good and quick read from beginning to end, the book can be read piecemeal for information and guidance on a specific issue. One can pick and choose topics depending on interest or need.
There are no traditional chapters, only a set of design topics of relatively short length organized into 8 general categories. Those categories include design and usability topics, layout, images, text, links, forms, and two others -- one of miscellaneous items, the other an explanation of basic Web-design material. There is also an index and a short glossary of HTML, CSS, Web, and graphics-related terms.
The fundamental theme of the book is that design and usability are, or should be, the same thing. Usability is paramount, of course, but the author's approach to Web design emphasizes creating a "sense of place": good design unites pages so that they look like they belong together.
This is not an earth-shattering idea, but like most of all of the design treatments, the goal is to design pages which make it easy for visitors to use the site. Many good design virtues are virtually invisible to the casual user. There is a confluence of design and usability; it's only when a design element doesn't work well that it comes to the attention of the user, and that's something to avoid. The author shows by example how design and usability are intertwined.
There are a handful of themes which guide the book. Admirably, the author emphasizes for every design element a concern for accessibility. Many of the design guides refer to accessibility by screen-readers and non-graphic browsers. A second major concern is for compliance with contemporary Web design standards as those promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium. Consequently, there is much emphasis on the separation of page structure from content, where CSS is used for structure and HTML is used for content. A contrast of HTML and CSS formatting is highlighted in many of the chapters.
There is a large handful of sections which express HTML and CSS formatting differences on page layout, text and image positioning, and other Web design elements. There is clear discussion on how to work with Javascript and stylesheets. The emphasis is on "forward-looking" coding, i.e., clean, standards-compliant, and accessibility conscious. Campbell offers an experienced designer's insights on choices to be made in design components. There is much value for both inexperienced and seasoned designers.
Each topic is richly expressed with clear and straightforward text, illustrations, screenshots, and sidebars on a variety of related matters. There are sidebars throughout titled "FAQs" and "Geekspeak," explaining concepts or terminology for the less-knowledgeable reader. Then there are those called "Tips" which usually offer an insight to practical problems, especially dealing with browser-compatibility issues. There are many useful tables and charts indexing specific tag attributes, with examples. In addition, and most useful, are the "Toolkits" which are sample code snippets. It would have been nice to have the code snippets available for downloading from the publisher's Web site.
This is a dense volume containing all sorts of information useful for the "garage" web designer. For some reason, the depth and weight of the content is reflected in the book itself, which is remarkably heavy, weighing in at a well-produced 29 ounces.
There are many books available on basic Web design, but this one is unusually clear and well-expressed. This is the type of book one keeps handy in the bookshelf next to the computer to access for quick solutions to everyday Web design problems.
You can purchase Web Design Garage from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Of course, the eMpTy-V generation probably disagrees with me.
And the Apple generation. Generation Q.
"This is not a primer, tutorial, or
concept-bound book. It is meant to provide
practical guidance and solutions to the most
common Web design issues dealt with by Web
designers.
Each topic is richly expressed with clear and
straightforward text, illustrations,
screenshots, and sidebars on a variety of
related matters. There are sidebars throughout
titled "FAQs" and "Geekspeak," explaining
concepts or terminology for the
less-knowledgeable reader."
So another HTML for dummies?
This review doesn't even say whether the book is any good or not.
I would like to thank the author for putting a guitar on the cover of that book. This way, at a glance, a girl would probably think I play guitar. Bonus.
I Want To Believe
I thought we only promoted Apple and Google?
Books too?
I know it's a radical concept to some Slashdotters, but style matters. I don't particularly want to go back to "green screen" text-only monochrome monitors.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I just looked at the table of contents. This seems like just another average HTML/CSS/Javascript tutorial/primer. It's geared toward quick results, and is possibly a good refrence if you tend to forget things, but it's in no way a book that a web developer would want.
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
Reading this review, instantaniously Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman sprang to mind. It has also been reviewed on slashdot here.
I don't want to be looking down on the book by saying this but judging by the review it sounds like Web Design Garage is kind of a light version.
Man... that'd be awesome!
Wouldn't that be generation i?
What are you expecting to find here?
Of course, the eMpTy-V generation probably disagrees with me.
Don't know about that, but the read-the-article-before-commenting generation might disagree with you. According to the review, this book seems pretty chock full of useful content.
By the way, nice HiP-LoOkInG, sTyLe-LaDeN comment!
Such a heavy book must contain lots and lots of usefull information!!!!
Well, I was looking for books with black and white animals on the covers and then I saw this. Needless to say, you can't judge a book by its cover. I found it to actually have useful real-world solutions to actual problems I have had in the past. I thought it would be useless and unprofessional, but it was not. It was also the least expensive web-development-related book in the major book chain store through which I was browsing.
"hip-looking, style-laden books"
Don't take this as redundant, but since when were web design books "hip" at all? Most beginners in my view would simply want clear concise instructions, and clear concise instructions don't need to be dressed up or "style-laden", the aesthetics of the book are perhaps of the least importance to I daresay ANY web designer.
eMpTy-V
MTV
Get it?
Agreed, but have you tried to read Tom Peters' Reimagine? Here's a sample chapter [PDF, 2.7 MB]. The Daily Show's America (The Book) is much the same: highly non-linear, making for a tough read.
I was hoping this book would have some valuable information about the XmlHttpRequest object, which is used by Google Suggest, GMail, and other sites around the web. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of information about it available on the internet. The way I see it, unless your site is going to be very simple, this is a technology you should definitely be using for all future projects ... I'm doing all I can with it, but there isn't any good info on it. Does anyone have links?
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Visit:
http://www.w3schools.com/
Good stuff, easy to navigate, covers the basics, free.
But then again dry, pure information can get tedious sometimes. There's nothing wrong with a little style.
Completely ignoring the review, and focusing only on how the book is packaged (without even seeing it yourselves). Based on author's description of HOW THE BOOK LOOKS, you concluded that it's aimed at the MTV-generation, putting style over content.
... Have any of you ever thought that if something LOOKED good, there might, just might be something worthy under the cover too?
For some reason, most geeks think that anything that looks good is somehow 'below' them. That's why there hasn't been a good-looking Linux desktop GUI yet
Breast!!
Uuh.. oh..wait.. never mind..
What would you do without a monitor? Sit and look stupid behind a keyboard and a mouse
I don't particularly want to go back to "green screen" text-only monochrome monitors.
Of course not. Everyone knows amber was much better...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
"I don't particularly want to go back to "green screen" text-only monochrome monitors."
That's funny, because that's exactly the color scheme I have mine set to. Of course, that's because it's easy on the eyes.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Does it include any information on how to build a personal ad/dating site that actually works? I've noticed that all the popular sites look good but prove to be defective upon use. I'm sure we've all noticed this. Please validate me, please...
I don't know about everyone else, but at least this is a book that sounds pretty good without costing 25+ dollars. It seems you can't find a single technical book thats also affordable, so I'd think about pick this one up if only for that.
the toothpaste is frozen
And when my eyes are tired, I find I miss my old amber mono... (well, I guess I could fire up the 286... it still works.)
There's a grave tendency to mistake flamboyancy for style. Sortof the same mentality that uses the BLINK tag for emphasis!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
On the other hand the w3.org maintains a bang-up bunch of white-papers on all web-related technologies. Nothing say's nerd like volumes of loose-leaf white papers falling out of your attache case . . .
Actually, I'd love a book focussing more on "hip-ness" and "style".
As a database-developer/web-site coder I often get asked to provide the design as well. Often I outsource the job, but only because I don't feel comfortable providing a professional looking design. Sure it might meet all the web standards - but it looks boring as bat-shit.
Anyone got any recommendations for design books for coders... not so much "HTML for dummies" as "Web-Design for Geeks"?
How deep of you.
The poster you replied to said that he preferred substance over style, not substance instead of style. So am I to take your disagreement to mean that you would prefer a world in which everything looked nice, but was completely useless? I buy a nice looking car that falls apart when I try to drive it? Shit like that, eh?
Sure, that's another extreme. But personally, 'hip-looking, style-lade' usually implies some jerk using lots of very fancy colors to totally obfiscuate any usefull content the site has, including taste.
Style matters a lot, but I find it stylish to have a website with a clean look, not all kinds of fancy (read 'hip') colors and stuff. The same reason I like the look of for example XFCE over Windows XP. I know it's comparing apples to pears but XFCE generally looks clean and quite frankly attractive though be it grey, on the other hand Windows XP tends to just look overly 'hip' messy and ugly.
Making a 'hip' site that looks good is relatively easy, building an attractive site is a big challenge. There are ways to make a grey concrete house look really attractive.
But ofcaurse, this is just my humble opinion.
I'm writing a paper on web accessibility for an ethics class this semester, while it's still in its infancy, I have some things I can share with you.
Are you aware that "The U.S. Census Bureau says that
more 49.7 million people have a disability or some sort of long
lasting condition. Of these 49.7 million people, 9.3 million have a
hearing or vision disability and 12.4 million of them have a condition
related to cognition or difficulty in learning"? Due to advances in health, the world population is getting older and 53 percent of the people with disabilities in the US are 65 and older.
And are you aware that about 71 out of the fortune 100 web sites according to one experiment have a severe web accessibility error (priorty 1) according to Bobby (web accessibility checker)?
And there are only so many things that validation sites can check--what if a site uses a a color theme that is nearly impossible for color-blind users? Fortunately, it's possible to design an accessible website that looks good also.
What kind of sytle does Google has, anyway?
Since when did this book advocate content-devoided sites? Were you expecting some info on how to create good content? Do you expect books to cover every topic slightly related to the core topic? Are you assuming that anyone who reads this book must not be interesting in content?
I'd have to agree...I could use some pointers in the artistic realm to complement the standards-based coding I already know how to do.
Unfortunately, I don't think that the artistic sort of thing is quite as easy to get from a book, or to put into a book, for that matter. But even a few ideas to point me in the right direction would be nice...
I'm sure he did. It's just not funny or original enough to comment on it.
1. Move computers to garage. 2. Start car. 3. ??? 4. Die
"Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold." -- Joseph Chilton Pearce
For most websites (excluding those intended as performance art, style portfolio pieces, or pure entertainment), a site focused on content without any style is still useful; a site focused on style without content is not.
However, reduces the whole argument to a false choice (the fallacy of the excluded middle, for the left-brainers).
I don't think even the original anonymous poster is advocating eliminating style altogether--instead, (s)he rails against style that gets in the way of content. A successful design uses great style to present the content and doesn't get in the way of that content.
Left-brainers like to tout Google as an example of the triumph of content over style, but it's really an example of using style where it counts, without empty gilding.
a site focused on content without any style is still useful; a site focused on style without content is not.
Actually, style without content doesn't have to be useful. I mean, why do people like to go see art in a museum, cause it's useful?
I visit sites like css Zen Garden and CSS Beauty to check out nice designs. I couldn't care less what the site content is about.
Sample this!
"I know it's a radical concept to some Slashdotters, but style matters. I don't particularly want to go back to "green screen" text-only monochrome monitors."
Most of the people here, weren't even alive then.
What part of "excluding those intended as performance art, style portfolio pieces, or pure entertainment" did you not understand?
I particularly enjoy CSS Zen Garden. It wasn't until I saw this site that CSS really clicked for me.
The part which is in parenthesis ;-)
Excuse me sir, i'm going to need some more caffeine to get me through the day...
Sample this!
The poster was referring to comments about the book, not web sites. I don't know about your experience, but I've certainly seen more than my share of computer books that put style ahead of substance and wound up compromising their usefullness and being annoying.
Extrapolating from that one comment by the poster to what kind of buildings he'd have us all live in is intellectually lazy. It's just as incorrect and pointless as saying that all FOSS adherents are long-haired, dope fiend, communists.
Actually, those monitors were much more confortable for sight than white background web browsers.
That's why all coders in my lab prefer to use black bg xterms with vi/emacs than gui editors like anjuta/kdevelop/devstudio... even if some of them can be tweaked to work in reverse video (mostly)
Style DOES indeed matter, but there also needs to be substance. Without substance, as you know, style (appearance) will become invisible. With negative substance, it may even hurt appearance.
Style DOES indeed matter, but there also needs to be substance. Without substance, style is irrelevent. With positive substance, style will become invisible. With negative substance, style will be appear ugly.
I'm using one right now to reply to this message, you insensitive clod!
DuH.
-"duh" - get it?
I suspect they'd agree that you take substance over style.
I like it
The non linear nature of it, the use of typeface actually ADDS to the ease of use. I can read it by ignoring the sidebars, confident I know what they contain. I can read it taking note of the key points and not the explanation; I can read it in a variety of different ways.
Above all, I read it because it doesn't bore me and gets across its message in a form that has impact.
If you can't take anything other than linear text, with headings in bold 18pt and justified columns - you need to get in touch with your tacit, artistic side; you're preconception that the world is simple and logical is holding you back.
Has anyone noticed that newer documentaries on Discovery, Nat Geo, etc. are getting more "flashy" and "stylish"? Take last night's program on National Geographic about the newly found human species for example. There were just too many camera and editing gimmicks. It was pretty much irritating to watch. A few special effects are okay, but they overdid it last night. And especially leave the weird camera angles to MTV; I don't want to turn my head sideways just to see who's talking.